What year is it?
Whether it be massive political unrest across the globe or boomers going mad about Little Britain getting taken off the telly, culture wars are a regular occurrence these days.
The generation becoming more frequent offenders are the humble millennials – once the darlings of the internet, they now find themselves battling their younger Gen-Zers online over being offended.
The latest millennial gripe seems to be over accusing the younger generation of trying to ‘cancel’ rap superstar Eminem, who is back in the spotlight with his latest song ‘Houdini’.
Gen Z and Millennials battle over ‘calls to cancel’ Eminem over ‘offensive’ songs
While ‘Houdini’ is nowhere close to his most offensive song in his back catalogue, one line – “If I was to ask for Megan Thee Stallion if she would collab with me, would I really have a shot at a feat?” – referring to the rapper being shot in the foot by Torey Lanez, has earned significant backlash.
Megan Thee Stallion was the subject of extreme misogyny and abuse following the incident, despite Lanez getting a 10-year prison sentence for the offence.
Eminem was criticised for the lyric as a needless inclusion, and a bit below-the-belt, even by his standards.
However, the 51-year-old has forever been a controversial figure, writing some extremely offensive lyrics since he broke onto the scene, so there is a lot of confusion as to why this is all becoming an issue now.
Once the single was released, TikToks of millennials saying things like “the youths are mad about Em’s new song… but we grew up with this” and “younger generations are out here getting heated, meanwhile millennials are just vibing to sweet nostalgia” started showing up all over the place.
Gen-Z reacted to the accusations by saying millennials were effectively making up the outrage, with one TikToker saying: “I did talk to some of my other Gen Z friends and the general consensus was that he didn’t go hard enough on the song”.
She also made the point that a lot of Gen Z folk were alive during Eminem’s initial rise and remember his older songs, meaning they’re not very surprised over his edgy schtick.
Basically, the response has been: “Nobody is trying to cancel Eminem” – a statement you could also apply to shows like Friends and Little Britain.
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One of the main reasons for all of this is, unfortunately, as we get older, we get more protective over our interests and values and some of us maybe get a bit over-protective, to the point that we fabricate an argument with an entire generation.
And that pretty much sums up 90% of the hellhole we call the internet, unfortunately.
Alas, there’ll be another controversial figure in the imaginary crosshairs soon enough, everybody will get mad for no reason, and nobody will be happier as a result.
The real winner here is, of course, Eminem himself, who, despite his age, continues to carry on being the controversial clown prince, spouting very-fast-but-not-very-good lyrics that may or may not offend people, but certainly get them talking.
